


One Question

by Caedmon



Series: In an hour or less: Olicity in a jiffy! [7]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Flash Fic, Introspective Oliver, flash fic drive, wedding fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4654305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caedmon/pseuds/Caedmon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver hates being questioned. But there's one question he's dying to answer...</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Question

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Olicity hiatus flash fic drive - everything was written and edited in an hour! 
> 
> I own nothing but the mistakes (and oh, I'm sure there are a blue million of them).  
> Comments and kudos feed the muse!  
> Come talk to me! Clintasha-n-olicity.tumblr.com

Oliver Queen was being asked a question, and that's usually a problem.

He has never really liked being questioned. He’s never really responded well to it, and has almost always just done the opposite of what the questioner intended. It’s part of the privilege of being a one-percenter that nobody tends to question you, nobody tells you no. There was very little in the way of someone to ask him the hard questions that would help him stay between the guideposts of morality in Oliver’s life before he sailed away with his father and wound up on an island called purgatory that acted as a gateway to hell. Ollie was told what he could and couldn’t do, and he did whatever the hell he wanted anyway. 

It wasn’t that he was a _bad_ person, per se, he just ...lacked limits. If he wanted something, he generally took it. If he wanted to do something, he generally did it. If it was a little socially unacceptable to just blatantly do or take the thing he wanted, he’d figure out a way to do it anyway if he was worried about embarrassing his parents - or damn the torpedoes. But he got what he wanted. 

Then he landed on Lian Yu ten years ago, and that was a shock of ice-cold water that lasted for years. Ollie, the carefree boy who did what he wanted was dead. Oliver Queen, the man who did what he had to do because he was _forced_ to do it to survive stood up from the grave that Ollie was buried in. Yet, certain traits carried over. 

He still didn’t like to be questioned. When pushed, he was still prone to do the opposite of what the person quizzing him was seeming to ask. The skilled manipulators he came up against learned this and used it to their advantage. It was with great restraint that Oliver figured out how to control this impulse around the people who would use it against him. 

When Oliver finally came home after so many years away, he was bombarded with questions. All kinds of questions, from all over, from all kinds of people, from every direction. He ignored, deflected, lied, deceived, and occasionally - rarely - told the truth. But what he never, ever, did, was appreciate the person who was questioning him or grow from the questions they were asking him. The person who was questioning him was always momentarily a foe, even when he knew they were a friend. The questions were nearly always a threat, even when they were innocuous. 

Anyone who demanded answers from him was someone to be wary of. His defenses stayed up, they were endlessly up. The questions that were designed to make him open up and share with the people who loved him only caused him to shut down and shut them out. 

Until Felicity Smoak. 

Somehow - and even now, five years after walking into her office with a bullet-ridden laptop he wasn't sure how she’d done it - somehow she had cut right through his bullshit immediately and effortlessly. His usual defenses were worthless. Every time she tilted her head and called him a liar in a way that still communicated her trust in him and that she wasn’t afraid of this man bringing weapons and poison into her office, he felt the walls he’d built around himself crumble a little - for her. And when they met at Big Belly Burger and she trusted him to help find Walter, they didn’t crumble the rest of the way, they dissolved. Like sugar in warm water. They were just gone...he had no defenses against Felicity Smoak.

Suddenly, there was someone in his life who could - and did - question him. Frequently. She made him stop and ask himself _why_ he was doing what he was doing. Felicity asked him what he was doing and why he was doing it. He found that before long she was the voice in the back of his mind, his own little Jiminy Cricket. He made decisions based on her input, knowing what she would think or say. She made him question himself and his motives even when she wasn’t asking. 

Felicity asked him the right questions in the exact right way that kept him centered, they made him know who he wanted to be, what he wanted to be, and where he wanted to be - even if the answer wasn’t a messianic good guy. 

He vowed to himself not to kill anymore, and when he saw her in imminent danger from the Count, it wasn’t even a question - he killed without mercy or hesitation. 

Oliver had told himself long ago that he had no room left in his heart for love, and that it wouldn’t be possible for him to love anyone. Felicity made him question that, then came bursting into his heart like she owned the place (turned out, she did.)

He’d sworn he needed to be alone, to perhaps enjoy the company of women he didn’t really care about from time to time, but to never be with anyone he really loved. Felicity made him question that, and he decided he had to be with her. 

He said he’d never give up the Arrow. The desire to be with Felicity had made him question his commitment to Starling City, and he’d driven off into the sunset with her.

He said he’d never want the simple, home life. He’d stayed with her in a resort hotel for one week and the sight of her walking out of the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel with no makeup had made him wonder what it would be like to see that on a permanent basis. Two weeks later, he’d asked her if they could move in together. 

When an ex girlfriend had reappeared to cause trouble after they got home, Felicity had asked him to tell her the truth. All of it. He’d told her, and she’d loved him anyway. 

Oliver had never wanted kids. The way Sara came toddling to Felicity with her arms in the air, giggling, and the way Felicity had scooped her up and swung her, laughing, had left him with his brow furrowed, shaking his head with the visions it gave him. 

His life had been completely black and white before he’d walked into Felicity’s office. Nobody questioned him, and that was great. Then Felicity came along, she questioned him constantly, and it was perfect.

John and Lyla liked to ask him about when they were having a playmate for Sara. Thea loved to jump in, saying that she’d need to know in advance if she needed to get a four-door car to accommodate her niece or nephew...or a bridesmaid’s gown. That would be nice, too. 

Oliver never answered them. It wasn’t their place to ask questions and demand answers. No matter how old he was, the old him still registered anyone demanding information from him as a threat, resenting the intrusion, and petulant Ollie still popped up sometimes. A little part of him feared that he may, out of some old, sick habit, give an answer he didn’t mean and didn't want to give just because he was being pressed for an answer. So he had always stayed silent. 

But not this time. Not this day...this glorious day. Just this once...someone was demanding an answer of him, and he was absolutely, one-hundred percent ready to give the honest answer. Without any hesitation. He was ready, and it felt like he’d been born ready for this question.

“Oliver Jonas Queen, do you take this woman, Felicity Meghan Smoak, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

Oliver squeezed the two hands in his, realizing he was squeezing tighter than he meant to only when he felt the unfamiliar press of their new rings against his fingers. Felicity was beaming up at him, her eyes warm and swimming with happy tears, and he was glad for the first time that she’d won their argument to leave her glasses off when they got married. The soft white of her veil framed her face, and he just stared at her. 

“I can’t believe you married me,” he whispered on a breath.

She froze and looked at him. “Oliver,” Felicity’s eyes darted out to the crowd, “we’re not married yet,” she breathed.

He blinked, surprised and confused, and she squeezed his hands, jerking her head toward the officiant. “Answer the question, Oliver.”

“I do!” he announced loudly, smiling brightly at the pastor, and then gracing everyone in attendance a self-depreciating smile ( _poor, besotted groom_ ) before looking back at Felicity and stepping towards her, tugging her hands and bending his face close.

“We married yet?” he whispered.

“Not yet…” she smiled.

“I now pronounce you…”

“Close enough,” he growled, and pulled her to him to kiss his bride.


End file.
